This year’s Nuit Blanche was on September 28th and 29th. The night’s activities were spread over a large number of locations around the city. That was a few days ago so yes, I am a bit behind. I was laid low for a couple of days with this cold that’s been going around… or I took a few days to recover from being up until 3:30 a.m.!

below: Part of ‘Continuum: Pushing Towards the Light’ by Brandy Leary and the Anandam Dancetheatre. They made they way across the glass enclosed bridge over Queen Street between the Eaton Centre and The Bay store.

below: More from the same installation, this time from the “right” side. It was great for making shadow figures. Thanks to Jude for starting off the evening with me… and getting creative (silly?) too.

below: We found a photo shoot on Bay Street.

below: On Bloor Street, nothing to do with Nuit Blanche but it looked cool. Reflections and lights.

below: Eaton Centre, a quieter moment that night.

below: Checking the map. Yonge Dundas Square – the installation there was very unimpressive so I took people pics instead.

below: At Church of the Redeemer (Avenue Road and Bloor), Korean Dancers. “Star Moon Water Stone” by Ensemble Jeng Yi

below: Drummers, same venue as above.

below: ‘This Storm is You’ at the Ontario Science Centre, an installation by Zahra Saleki. Photography on the walls and stories on the floor.

below: Walk among the stories. “Every story deserves to be lit. Grab a sharpie and write yours.”

below: Smile!.. and a testament to the start of love. Two of many lit stories.

below: Saleki’s photos displayed here are abstract dance photographs in black and white. Negative images and slowing the camera to produce the blur of motion.

below: This is what you saw when you first got off the subway (is the SRT a subway?) at Scarborough Town Centre. It’s part of the ‘The Things They Carried’ Babel series. The motifs are similar to those on the installation at Yonge -Dundas Square, that oops, I don’t have a picture of.

below: At Scarborough Civic Centre, ‘Everything I Wanted to Tell You’ by Hiba Abdallah. A series of words in lights projected onto several buildings. The words changed every few seconds to tell a story or two.

below: More of the words. “People hold on so tightly to a specific narrative of this place”.

below: More projections at Scarborough Civic Centre. Sorry, not sure which installation this is.

below: Scarborough Town Centre (mall) had a mountain of inflatable globes you could walk under, or just look at. ‘Walk Among Worlds’ by Maximo Gonzalez

below: Weaving stories, ‘Interlacing’ by Community Arts Guild, at Scarborough Town Centre.

The weather’s been all over the place, warm, cold, hot, cold again, back and forth…. like May weather usually is. We were fortunate to have great weather this past holiday Monday and a lot of people took advantage of the day! As I walked around, this is some of what I saw.

Toronto in the summer means street festivals every weekend. One of the festivals this past weekend was the 15th annual South Asian Festival in ‘Little India’. Gerrard Street East was closed to traffic between Greenwood and Coxwell for the occasion.

below: Shopping, strolling and playing games. Try your skill at cricket or buy some jewellery or some clothing.

Like all street festivals, there was lots of food and drink available.

below: Extracting sugar cane juice.

below: Fresh baked naan, straight from the oven.

There were many photo ops provided. For instance, there were cut outs for faces in pictures of Bollywood actors.

… and a richly decorated cart (What is it’s proper name?)

and mannequins in traditional costumes.

below: There was also entertainment. In this case, a rapper in Hindi and English.

… and there was even a large elephant parked beside Victoria Whole Foods! It looks a bit tacky with the big advertising banner on its side but it was still a popular place to take selfies.

On Saturday night events were held at a number of venues that were concentrated in two locations, along Queen St. West and in the Church-Wellesley village area. I hung out around two parks in the village, Norman Jewison Park which runs east of Yonge and Barbara Hall Park on Church street. In hindsight, I wish I had had more time, or had been more organized, to get to more of the events.

Red Pepper Spectacle Arts led a Light Parade that started at Norman Jewison park. A small contingent, most wearing or carrying a light-emitting object, walked through the park, along and then back down Church Street. From the – sparklers, glow sticks

to the more elaborate

below: and an eagle on stilts

below: Note to self: for night time parades take more photos at the start of the parade because once people start moving it’s more difficult to get them in focus!

below: Where else would you be able to sit on a unicorn and get your picture taken?

below: And after a unicorn pose, have your photo taken standing with a well-lit couple.

below: 360 degrees by Iain Downie, 360 stars, 60 in each of the six Pride colours in the garden.

We pass by hundreds of people on a daily basis who we may never see again. Sometimes we share a glance that lasts a bit longer. This piece is about the relationships that could be created if we acted on those glances. These are the fleeting chances, exchanged through our eyes that will never be fully realized. Instead these people may only appear once in our lives as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”

Totally unexpected… walked past Yonge Dundas Square this afternoon and happened upon Shopper’s Drug Mart’s 15th birthday party for their Optimum program. There was a DJ, music playing, and a couple of people dancing. There were acrobats but I just missed their performance. The main attraction was a large clear plastic bubble filled with many bits of coloured paper the people were lining up for…. a life sized confetti globe.

Once inside, people were posing for photographs.

Pictures were printed on the spot for those who wanted them.

It was also part of a contest for gift cards and vacations.

I didn’t go in the bubble but I did score a loot bag by showing my Optimum card.
I now have some candy and a small bottle of brown nail polish.